Frank McCourt can sue, but he probably can’t win. The embattled owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers can retain the most expensive attorneys and launch the most embittered invective and carry on as if Commissioner Bud Selig ruled by whimsy and vendetta.

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But having signed away his right to sue Major League Baseball as a condition of buying a ballclub, McCourt bears a ponderous burden of proof should he take his case to the courtroom. Meanwhile, McCourt’s inability to gain Selig’s approval of a $3 billion rights deal with FOX Sports television means the Dodgers may be unable to meet their payroll obligations at the end of the month.

The stage is being set for the Dodgers to be seized by MLB and, eventually, for the franchise to be sold to someone less leveraged and more responsible; someone with the means to replenish coffers that McCourt and his estranged wife, Jamie, have pillaged; someone whose vision is not clouded by venality; someone who can go Hollywood without misplacing his moral compass.

Someone very much like Mark Cuban.

The iconoclastic owner of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks has expressed interest in buying the scuffed jewel of the National League (having been rebuffed when the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers were for sale) and it’s hard to imagine a much happier ending to the Dodgers’ ownership nightmare or a much more worrisome scenario for the San Diego Padres.

If Cuban’s tailoring tastes tend to run toward T-shirts, Forbes estimates the depth of his pockets at $2.5 billion. If Cuban is too public, too opinionated and too loud for baseball’s moderate milieu — think of the Rodney Dangerfield role in “Caddyshack” — he has lately learned to pick his spots for provocation. For all of his surface quirks, Mark Cuban is a forward-thinking and detail-oriented long-term investor with the dollars to get things done.

He is, as such, an obvious threat to the balance of power in the National League West.

While the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have waged an escalating war of wallets in the American League East, the Dodgers have generally failed to flex the financial muscle of the nation’s No. 2 market.

As recently as 2000, the Dodgers’ player payroll ranked second among the 30 major league clubs, less than $4 million behind the then-World Champion Yankees. But during the eight years of McCourt’s imprudent and cash-poor ownership, the Dodgers’ resources have increasingly been diverted to the family’s personal real estate holdings and lavish living.

Despite 2010 revenues that Forbes estimated at $246 million — fourth-highest in baseball — the Dodgers’ 2011 Opening Day payroll of $103.8 million ranked just No. 12. Not since 2003 — the season preceding McCourt’s purchase — has the Dodgers’ payroll placed among baseball’s top five franchises.

As the owner of a private business, McCourt deserves broad discretion in deploying his profits. Yet as one of 30 MLB franchise owners, McCourt’s self-indulgent management style, tone-deaf decision-making and capacity for embarrassing headlines create an impression bad for everyone’s business: one of a baseball owner consumed with gratifying his own ego at the expense of the product on the field.